Last of eight Folsom Street houses goes up in smoke

Thursday

Jan 31, 2013 at 7:20 PM

The last of eight houses on Folsom Street was set ablaze Thursday by a man who grew up there.

By KIM KIMZEYkim.kimzey@shj.com

The last of eight houses on Folsom Street was set ablaze Thursday by a man who grew up there.Jeff Cannon of Greenville described the moment as “bittersweet.” He recalled the community of his youth as a vibrant place filled with hardworking, “salt of the earth” people who took pride in their homes and neighborhood.Cannon is vice president of national assets of a Dallas-based printing company.His father died when Cannon was an infant. His mother moved to 230 Folsom St. with his grandmother. Their neighbors were an assistant fire chief and a retired Southern Railway administrator who maintained a garden on what's now an overgrown lot between burnt piles of rubble.Cannon said crime and drugs began infiltrating the community in the 1980s.Although Cannon closed a childhood chapter, he is hopeful Northside, with guidance from community leaders, will be revitalized and once again be a community like the one he fondly remembers.The controlled burns that began Jan. 22 are a step in that direction. But the houses, destroyed to make way for new development, also served as learning tools.Last week about 170 firefighters and fire service instructors from across the country — as far away as California — attended the burns where 14 experiments were conducted in a project called the ISFSI (International Society of Fire Service Instructors) Scientific Burns.Fire researchers with the National Institute of Standards and Technology wired houses with sensors and cameras in studies that have garnered international attention.Dan Madrzykowski, a fire protection engineer with the federal agency, said manuals have trained firefighters to attack a blaze from the unburned side of a house for fear of pushing fire through the house, but experiments showed that did not happen.

Madrzykowski said measurements showed “it's OK to have an aggressive exterior fire attack.” He said tests revealed that applying water did not push fire or worsen conditions in other parts of a house.Madrzykowski said most people die in structure fires from toxic gases, so they measured how rapidly gas measurements grew within minutes of ignition of a sofa or other synthetic materials in a home.He also said firefighters have died while crews stood by with hoses but feared that dousing the flames with water would cause greater harm, but they have seen examples in the field and data collected here that shows if a firefighter is trapped it's better to to get water on the fire.Pat Wilson, deputy fire chief of Johns Creek Fire Department in Georgia, lost a friend he trained as a firefighter in 2007. He said Felix Roberts died in a house fire after entering it on a life-saving mission.Wilson attended the Spartanburg burns and said he learned a lot about tactical deployment that he plans to share with firefighters. Wilson said firefighters like him have been trained to be aggressive and get right into the midst of internal structure fires.“The information we're learning is going to make us safer,” Wilson said.Modern materials used to build and furnish homes burn differently than those from decades ago. Rather than organic materials once used in furniture, such as cotton in couches, firefighters are encountering couches stuffed with synthetic, petroleum based fibers that burn faster and hotter.Spartanburg Fire Chief Marion Blackwell said the experiments revealed results that could impact the way fires are fought and save more lives.In one experiment, Blackwell said the temperature dropped 1,000 degrees when a blaze was attacked head on.On Tuesday, the doors to a room in one burning house were closed. While rooms on either side of the closed off room heated to 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, the secured room did not exceed 96 degrees, Blackwell said.

Avondale Arizona Fire Rescue Captain Aaron Glass said scientifically burning and studying several real houses may be unprecedented.Glass said their observations reinforced their training. Glass, like Blackwell, discussed new furniture.“It's gasoline basically in a solid form and we can't really fight fires like we used to. We have to take a different approach,” he said.Blackwell said the study collected scientific data on how detached, single family houses burn in fires. He thinks after data crunching is complete, firefighters will know which techniques are most effective and that may change fire prevention safety concepts.

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